This Makes It Real
by rufeepeach
Summary: Beckett's in a swimsuit, their case is broken wide open, and suddenly fear isn't enough to keep the tension inside. A smutty rewrite of the pool scene in 'To Love and Die in LA'


Title: This Makes it Real

Fandom: Castle

Rating: NC-17

Genre: Romance, PWP, Missing Scene

Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett

Spoilers: For 'To Love and Die in LA'

Summary: Beckett's in a swimsuit, their case is broken wide open, and suddenly fear isn't enough to keep the tension inside. A smutty rewrite of the pool scene in 'To Love and Die in LA'

"Don't you think it's time we called the LAPD?" Castle turned to Beckett, and the firm, law-abiding cop inside her knew he was right.

"No, I have a better idea." He cocked his head at her, frowning, wondering why she was switching roles on him. This wasn't how they worked. He was the rogue, with the off-beat ideas and the outside-the-box thinking. She was supposed to be by-the-book, straight-laced and big with the rules.

He was right, as usual: to catch Royce's killer, the LAPD were their best option. But somehow, between their talk the night before and now, the rules had changed. There was something higher on Kate Beckett's to-do list right now than 'catch the son of a bitch who killed Mike Royce'.

Number one priority? Force Castle to make a move beyond heartfelt compliments and admiration from afar. Because despite all the complicated feelings, all the angst and heartache and pure, honest terror she felt when thinking about having and then losing him, Beckett was sick and tired of waiting.

So she waked away, towards the ladies' changing rooms, and didn't even look back at him.

Ten minutes later and she'd pulled on the sexy swimsuit she'd packed on a whim. She strutted - because even she admitted that throwing her shoulders back and moving her hips that much could only qualify as strutting - around to the deep end and dived into the pool. She made sure she knew where Ganz was sat, so she could fulfill her official mission and catch his eye.

When she came up for air and smoothed her hair back, she spotted a very familiar figure ordering some fruity cocktail from the bar. Trust Castle to find the girliest drink on the menu. Beckett smirked to herself: she'd not seen him since she'd changed her clothes.

Any other time, she could have pretended it was all a coincidence that she picked just the right moment, when he was looking in her direction, to do her Bond-girl rise out of the water. But this time, she used the confidence his non-verbal, choking response gave her to smile seductively at their quarry, and didn't spare her partner a passing glance. She swaggered away, over to a deck chair, and waited for Ganz to take the bait.

As she watched Castle out of the corner of her eye, distracting thoughts came unbidden into her head.

Not dirty ones, not on a job - she'd learnt to control almost all of those months ago, a fact she was still very proud of. No, these were deeper, accompanied by a squeezing feeling in the vicinity of her heart that made it hard to think of anything - anyone - else.

Three years ago, when her hair was shorter and darker, before she'd learnt all she had about her mom's murder and before Castle first lumbered into her life, she had been harder. The Kate Beckett who first saw the victim covered in flowers wouldn't - couldn't - have done this, so blatantly flirted with a suspect for information. She'd softened since then, and she knew who was to blame.

The man sat over at the bar, trying desperately not to gawp at her. That was one thing that never changed: he still looked at her the same way he had when he'd asked her out after their first case. However much she might change, he never did.

Even when she wished he would. Even when she knew that only his change of manner, from friend to something more, only his acknowledgment of the change he brought in her, would make the transformation real.

Ganz approached, and she gave him her most beguiling smile.

She was doing great, she really was. She might not have been the kind of girl to use her sexuality for everything, but she knew how to do it when she had to. It was Castle, bumbling about in an entirely unprofessional - and _adorable_, though she hated to admit it - way, stealing Ganz's phone, that threw her off. She saw the moment, were she alone or with a real cop, when she would have let Ganz go. The moment when the convincing criminal allows her contact to leave, and find her later if needs be.

But then Ganz would turn around, see Castle, and the game would be over for good.

As it was, her keeping Ganz around longer than she should blew it anyway, although not as completely as seeing Castle would have. She shot her partner the dirtiest death-glare she could - the one that made _Esposito_ cringe - as Ganz walked away and Castle managed, just barely, to escape unseen.

When the caught up behind the bushes, she couldn't help but hit him. Hard. And it felt good enough the first time that she had to do it again.

"He called me _green_, Castle!" She couldn't hide the petty little whine in her voice - she'd been at this over ten years now, this was her _career,_ and some scumbag could still call her _green_? "What the hell were you doing?"

"I saw his phone in the Cabana, I thought it was worth the risk!"

"You took his phone?" Three years following her, and he still hadn't learnt enough to see what a shitty idea that was?

"No!" He looked so wounded that she immediately felt guilty: his incredible resemblance to a hyperactive puppy often managed to hide how very intelligent he really was. She knew him better than anyone he wasn't related to: she should know that. "No, I took a picture of his recent call list!"

"Really?" A whole world of possible evidence opened in Beckett's head, "Where is it?"

He flinched at the look on her face, and she knew it must be intense. She couldn't help it: this case was more important than almost anything else right now. "Don't poke me." he pleaded, as he handed her his phone. On the screen was a treasure trove of evidence, better even than she'd imagined.

They had it. A huge, triumphant smile broke out over her face, "Poke you? I wanna _kiss_ you!" she made it sound like it just came out, like a freudian slip, but she meant it. She always meant it.

She saw, out of her peripheral vision, his head jerk up in response to that. And that old feeling, that old fear of _Oh shit what now _started to burn in her stomach.

"_Okay, we need to run down these numbers, see if we can trace one of them to Ganz's buyer…"_

She should have said it. A year ago - hell, a month ago - she would have said it. Brought them back to solving the case, set the flirting aside. Run away again without even moving her feet. She could see he was expecting her to. That was their dance, now: they got as close as they could without crossing that line between 'friends' and 'lovers' before she pulled back, dragging him with her.

Not this time. Kate Beckett wasn't scared of anything, even losing Richard Castle. She'd lost Royce twice already this year, lost Tom and Will before that, and Josh would be gone before the end of the year: she wasn't losing Castle too because of something as stupid as _fear_.

So she looked up at him, her mouth open a little as if she couldn't believe what she'd just said.

"Really?" his voice was low, quiet, a little croaky. She was going off-book, her second time in as many hours.

"Always."

Their word - their code for everything they never said out loud - broke the dam inside him and he didn't say anything more. He leaned forward, grabbed her upper arms with both hands, and pulled her up to meet him. His kiss was insistent, hot and hard, breaking down barriers with every movement of his lips against hers, ever swipe of his tongue along her lower lip or across the top of her mouth.

His hands moved down to cover her hips, heat searing through her swimsuit and into her skin. Hers were tangled in his hair, keeping his lips against hers for as long as possible.

Finally, they had to break apart for air, and Beckett was suddenly scared that they'd have to talk about this, that it'd end in awkwardness and a tacit agreement never to try it again. But then his mouth was on her neck, trailing little kisses down to her collarbone, worrying the pulse-point with his teeth so she knew she'd bruise, soothing the little mark he'd made with his tongue, and she couldn't think anymore.

His hands moved up from her hips, slowly, trailing little lines of fire up her skin until he reached her chest. His thumbs rubbed lightly over her nipples, the wet fabric of her swimsuit magnifying the sensation, and her head lolled forward. She moaned, muffling the sound in his shoulder, as her fingers worked downwards to find the growing hardness in his jeans.

She pushed lightly with the heel of her palm, and he thrust forwards automatically, which made her giggle. He looked down at her smiling face, critically, "You shouldn't be able to do that." he murmured, and before she could ask what he meant, he had started rubbing her breast harder, teasing the nipple with the fingers of one hand while the other moved south.

"Castle…" she murmured, although it came out as a whimper as his talented fingers found her centre through her wrap and swim costume, "Castle!" she bit down on his shoulder to hide another, louder moan as he found her clit and squeezed, just a little.

"Now, that's not all from the pool, is it?" she could feel his wicked little grin against her cheek as his fingers rubbed the wetness between her legs, and she shook her head.

"Well…" she murmured, not content with letting him have all the fun torturing her, as she ground her hand harder into the expanding bulge in his pants, "This isn't just from making out, is it?"

"Not my fault," he groaned, as she rubbed harder, the friction of his jeans against his cock short-circuiting his brain, "You look so hot in that outfit. Bond girl."

A scream came from the pool, just over the top of the hedge, and they both realised where they were. Castle looked down at Beckett, breath short, taking stock of her flushed cheeks and heavy breathing "Car?"

"Car." she nodded, and then squealed when he picked her up and carried her, bridal-style, as fast as he could to their rental car, waiting in the parking lot.

He opened it as fast as possible, and placed her down inside. The car was baking hot, having been sat in the California sunshine for over an hour, but neither of them cared. The heat outside was nothing compared with that had been building up between them for years, now finally emerging.

It took some fumbling, but eventually they arranged it so that Castle was sat in the passenger seat, chair rolled all the way back, with Beckett perched on his lap, straddling his hips. She smiled down at him, hair falling all around both of them so all he could see was her.

He moved his hand forward, brushing her hair aside so he could turn the key in the ignition and turn on the air con. The sensation of the cold air blasting against her overheated skin, the contrast with his hot, strong hands roaming all over her, made her groan and roll her head back.

She rolled her hips, moving her centre over his crotch, enjoying the way his eyes closed tight. It took more fumbling and maneuvering before the clasps on her swimsuit were undone and the bottom half removed, and his jeans were open enough to allow access.

Then there was no more waiting, no more foreplay. They had spent years building up to this, so that when she sank down on his cock, the feeling of him moving inside her was enough to make her sob with pleasure. He gripped her hips and held her down, and she cried out at the sensation of being utterly filled by him, as she got used to it.

Then she pushed up against his shoulders, until he was almost all the way out of her before plunging back down, making them both cry out. She rode him at a gallop, hands fisted in his hair, mouth fused to his in a long, hot, wet kiss.

She shifted a little, changing the angle, so he could thrust up deeper inside her. He hit a spot deep within her, once, twice, three times before she was undone, her orgasm washing over her, so powerful that it made her scream out his name.

She clenched hard around him, triggering his own climax, and he thrust erratically into her a few more times until he was done, and she collapsed bonelessly against him.

"I love you, Kate." she heard him whisper into her hair, and her heart twisted again.

She tensed for a moment, and wondered in a tiny, detached part of her mind if she could say it back. She knew she felt it, knew he was probably the One, knew she'd never felt anything like this for anyone before. She just didn't know if she could say it.

Because that made it real.

But she'd come this far, done this much without succumbing to fear. What was one more leap of faith?

"I love you too, Rick." she paused, smiled, and said without any unease at all, "Always."


End file.
